The primary time we spoke to Mona Fang in 2021, she was an undergraduate on the College of Illinois learning aerospace engineering.
She was additionally constructing her first enterprise, Karma Commerce.
Inside 24 months, Fang dropped out of faculty, moved twice throughout the nation, traveled worldwide, and began a brand new enterprise referred to as Omniio.
So what modified?
“I used to be actually break up on my path—whether or not to decide on aerospace or a tech startup,” Fang says. “I felt like selecting aerospace was a protected path, however a startup was the riskier one, and it was one thing that I’d at all times remorse not taking.”
Fang’s globe-trotting entrepreneurial adventures in Illinois, Miami, Thailand, New York, and China over the previous two years led to her settling in San Francisco.
Whereas she may be pausing her nomadic rhythm, Fang’s simply firstly of her lifelong dedication to entrepreneurship.
And it began by sorting via her closet.
Karma
Fang subsequent spoke to us in September 2023—this time from mainland China. She’d been there for 3 weeks working with traders. Fang had visited China earlier than to see kin, however it was all enterprise on this journey.
“Each time [I visit], there’s a serious technological leap right here,” Fang says. “It’s been a very good expertise seeing how a big inhabitants of individuals can transact in a really high-tech means and see new potentialities of how retail and native retail can all be built-in.”
She continues to explain how particular person retailer homeowners in China have the identical know-how instruments as a big retail outlet or on-line retailer. Whereas in america, Fang sees an enormous hole in options for conventional mom-and-pop retailers.
In 2021, Fang referred to as us from a storage closet at her brick-and-mortar retailer in Champaign, Illinois. Though she articulates her concepts with the identical intelligence and confidence as when she was a pupil, this time, there’s a calmness about her standing as a founder.
“The perfect persons are individuals who aren’t simply making an attempt to promote you one thing however truly present worth,” Fang says. “And that’s actually onerous to make, particularly on the earth of tech the place it takes two years, a 12 months, or one thing to even launch a product, and also you’re left within the grime questioning in the event you ought to even be doing this on the similar time.”
“The perfect persons are individuals who aren’t simply making an attempt to promote you one thing however truly present worth.”
Fang talks like a seasoned entrepreneur as a result of she is one. Her experimentation with entrepreneurship began again in highschool when she bought garments on-line for a facet revenue as a result of she was targeted on teachers and didn’t have time for a conventional in-person job for teenagers. That’s when she first seen the inefficiencies in retail, particularly in promoting secondhand items.
“It wasn’t actually essentially about constructing a enterprise for me personally, however it was extra about [creating] some optimistic influence throughout the world,” Fang advised us in 2021 from the storage closet.
“There’s a system that’s damaged. Let’s repair it.”
Whereas she was shopping for books for her first semester on the College of Illinois, Fang was concurrently beginning Karma Commerce, a digital foreign money enterprise that purchased and bought used clothes.
In her two years on campus, Fang constructed Karma Commerce right into a full-fledged enterprise, together with a retail retailer close to campus that housed clothes and partnered with shops throughout the realm that accepted a digital foreign money referred to as KARMA.
Prospects earned KARMA by donating garments and spent KARMA to get new garments for a small price. Karma Commerce helped recirculate 20,000 objects of clothes and concern $1.7 million value of KARMA.
Outdoors of funding, Fang’s hardest problem with Karma Commerce was clearly explaining the enterprise. So she added one other course to her busy workload. However as an alternative of hauling books to a classroom, she took Foundr’s Seven-Determine Copywriting course taught by Arman Assadi.
“The largest problem for us was to clarify [the digital currency] to individuals who had by no means used it earlier than […] and turning over their earlier conceptions of what trend consumption must be,”
Fang advised us. “We might paint them an image of one thing far more and by no means seen earlier than. So [the course] actually helped us [explain the concept]. So that basically did assist us in bringing the phrase out to individuals—permitting us to speak higher to the individuals and telling them that, ‘Hey, that is truly going that will help you.’”
Six months after we first spoke with Fang about Karma Commerce, she confronted a choice.
She was midway to a bachelor’s diploma and working a enterprise. However she was given an surprising alternative.
And taking it could imply giving up all the things she’d constructed up to now.
Danger and Reward
In 2021, Fang advised us that you have to take a leap of religion to do one thing that’s by no means been executed earlier than available in the market. On the time, she was referencing her enterprise, Karma Commerce. She didn’t know one other leap was approaching.
Throughout her junior 12 months at Illinois, Fang was provided a 12-week fellowship from Hacker Fellowship Zero (HF0), an unique residency for high technical founders.
Her alternative was to observe the protected path or wager on herself.
“I satisfied my dad and mom by saying, ‘Nicely, how many individuals can get a university diploma versus increase enterprise capital?’” Fang says. “And that form of obtained them to the opposite facet.”
“I satisfied my dad and mom by saying, ‘Nicely, how many individuals can get a university diploma versus increase enterprise capital?’”
Fang dropped out of faculty and moved to Miami for 3 months of intensive work on constructing a digital foreign money modeled after Karma Commerce.
However Miami was a leap of religion that proved to be extra enlightening than fruitful.
“I felt form of misplaced [with Karma Trade] as a result of I needed to in the end simply create software program as an alternative of shifting round bodily merchandise,” Fang says.
The 12 weeks didn’t end in a revolutionary new blockchain foreign money, however the intense entrepreneurial setting compelled Fang to determine what was subsequent: Return to academia or go deeper down the rabbit gap of entrepreneurship.
At first, she selected neither.
She flew to Thailand to apply yoga and meditation at a monastery.
“It’s very troublesome to have the ability to create something while you’re pushed by your individual acutely aware thought, however while you’re capable of step away from it, I feel that’s actually vital,” Fang says.
“It’s very troublesome to have the ability to create something while you’re pushed by your individual acutely aware thought.”
Stepping away from entrepreneurship, college, and expectations gave Fang time to breathe, be taught extra about herself, and deepen her long-standing dedication to yoga and associated practices. (Fang accomplished her 200-hour yoga trainer certification whereas in highschool and taught yoga ranging from the age of 18.) Throughout a month in Thailand, Fang studied theravada buddhist meditation strategies, dwelling a monastic way of life. When she headed again stateside, touchdown in New York Metropolis, she included these experiences into her new way of life.
Fang’s non secular exploration additionally informs the way in which she does enterprise.
“One of many largest elementary ideas of Buddhism is nothing on this world is value chasing after, and nothing on this world will convey you eternal happiness. So that basically does disrupt all the thought that ‘Oh, I ought to endure now so I can earn this good thing sooner or later, this nice exit, this nice IPO or one thing,” she says. “And what that in the end teaches you is, properly, if nothing’s passable, then what are you going to do together with your time?”
Serving Her Group
Lately, Fang spends her time engaged on her new enterprise, Omniio. The enterprise was impressed partly by a quote from Steve Jobs.
“You possibly can’t join the dots wanting ahead; you’ll be able to solely join them wanting backward. So it’s a must to belief that the dots will one way or the other join in your future.”
After Fang moved to New York, she invested her capital right into a enterprise concept that constructed on her expertise with Karma Commerce.
“After I had my storefront, we had 30,000 merchandise, and possibly 10 individuals got here to our retailer on daily basis. So we had all this worth that was simply sitting there, and the large drawback was it was simply staying at the back of the closet, and we would have liked to get it seen,” Fang says.
Whereas Fang ran her storefront, she employed individuals to take photographs and add knowledge. The method was painstakingly guide. Fang understood the overstocking drawback was widespread, particularly amongst craft, classic, and upcycle retailers.
“I’d ask them, ‘Why do you’ve these items?’ And so they mentioned, ‘Oh, we’re making an attempt to record this on-line,’” Fang says. “And so they’re saying they’re making an attempt to create a web based retailer, however they realized all these X, Y, Z issues—the identical issues that we skilled. And so I simply actually needed to construct an answer for them that’s quite simple.”
Fang credit the fellowship in Miami for instructing her in regards to the significance of simplicity. Retailer homeowners didn’t want a blockchain foreign money. They wanted one thing to unravel the issue of overstock.
“It made me understand there have been simply so many lacking items to the puzzle, and on the earth of B2B [and] SaaS, you’d assume that each one of those issues are solved,” Fang says. “However me, as a retailer proprietor, I simply actually felt uncared for. I felt like no person was taking note of my issues in any respect, and there was nothing on the market.”
From her conversations with fellow retailers, Fang knew that this demographic wanted a option to rapidly take a photograph of a product and add it to a digital storefront with the info and information straightforward to show. She describes it as a “Snapchat for retail stock.”
“On the core of it, it’s actually nearly supporting individuals with their unbiased companies and never having to depend on shopping for from bulk producers,” Fang says, “I realized in regards to the individuals within the vendor neighborhood, and I simply actually need to help them.”
“I realized in regards to the individuals within the vendor neighborhood, and I simply actually need to help them.”
Utilizing her personal funds, Fang constructed Omniio right into a working MVP. Then, she rapidly obtained her first spherical of funding, which enabled her to develop Omniio in order that it might hyperlink to retailers’ Shopify storefronts and enhance add speeds to a few seconds per product by auto-filling the title, value, and outline. Omniio additionally permits retailers to promote merchandise in-store and on-line concurrently with out extra {hardware} or tech.
Leap of Religion
By the autumn of 2023, once we talked with Fang remotely from China, she was finalizing her second funding spherical and planning to maneuver to San Francisco. The following steps are constructing a workforce and scaling Omniio to assist as many retailers as doable.
Although Fang’s taking one other leap of religion with Omniio, she says she understands extra about her objective from the connection between entrepreneurship and spirituality. The perfect entrepreneurs, she says, have a extra selfless mentality as an alternative of “hustling” or “grinding” for a reward.
“They really actually take pleasure in what they do, or they actually benefit from the feeling of influence somewhat than what the influence will convey them,” Fang says
Fang is forging forward into an business that resists selflessness. However even in her early 20s, her resume of entrepreneurship has ready her to be prepared for no matter comes subsequent.
“You possibly can obtain greater than while you imagine you’ll be able to. After I was 17, I didn’t assume this might be doable,” Fang advised us when she was 21.
“You possibly can obtain extra while you imagine you’ll be able to. After I was 17, I didn’t assume this might be doable.”
Now, at age 23, “what’s doable” is only the start.
Get the identical course that helped Fang launch her enterprise.
